Cloud-computing services and Software as a Service (SaaS) providers are becoming more and more ubiquitous. Clients or customers that take advantage of such services are often concerned about how and where their computerized data is being handled and protected. Some jurisdictions in the world have data residency (DR) requirements (regulations) defining which kinds of data cannot leave that jurisdiction. For example, in some countries, personally identifying information (PII) about citizens can only be stored within the borders of that country.
Such regulations have been addressed by Internet applications most commonly by “safe harbor” laws that define exceptions to the data residency requirements. However, such “safe harbor” laws are under attack. Some application providers can deploy their offerings to data centers sited within the jurisdiction. The industry also offers data residency products that are standalone applications customized to work for a given application sited outside of the jurisdiction.